Rubber Recovers From Two-Week Low as China May Support Growth

Rubber rebounded from a two-week low amid speculation China may take measures to support growth, bolstering demand from the world’s largest consumer of the commodity used in tires.

Rubber for delivery in December on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange gained as much as 2.1 percent to 239.6 yen a kilogram ($2,414 a metric ton) and traded at 238.8 yen at 10:20 a.m. The most-active contract slid to 234.6 yen yesterday, the lowest settlement since June 27.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told a forum of advisers and executives yesterday that the nation will seek to keep economic growth, employment and inflation within limits, signaling he won’t let the rate of expansion slow too much. China’s gross domestic product rose 7.5 percent last quarter from a year earlier, putting at risk the official full-year target for the same pace.

“The market corrected higher because it was oversold on excessive concern about China slowing,” said Hideshi Matsunaga, an analyst at broker ACE Koeki Co. in Tokyo.

Futures also recovered after International Rubber Study Group forecast a surplus in natural rubber will decline to as low as 92,000 tons this year from 460,000 tons last year. Production may drop 0.1 percent to 11.3 million tons or increase as much as 4.3 percent to 11.8 million tons, according to senior economist Dock No.

Rubber for January delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 0.4 percent to 17,690 yuan($2,883) a ton. Natural rubber inventories climbed by 109 tons to 114,230 tons, the bourse said on July 12, based on a survey of nine warehouses in Shanghai, Shandong, Yunnan, Hainan and Tianjin.

Thai rubber free-on-board dropped 0.6 percent to 78.85 baht ($2.54) a kilogram yesterday, the lowest level since October 2009, according to the Rubber Research Institute of Thailand. Rains spread across the country’s south, main production area, disrupting tapping, it said.